From SAVE to Iran war cash, Republicans in Congress are at stark odds

WASHINGTON – Congressional Republicans are headed into the home stretch ahead of a crucial midterm election year bitterly divided over their competing legislative priorities.

Between the Senate and House of Representatives, there are vastly different expectations among GOP lawmakers as to what they can accomplish over the remainder of the year. The centerpieces of President Donald Trump‘s agenda – enacting voting restrictions, ramping up defense spending amid the Iran war, confirming Cabinet nominees and a longshot effort to eliminate the Senate’s filibuster – have sown intraparty discord.

Republican defections in the House of Representatives have repeatedly prompted symbolic rebukes of the Iran war. Fiscal conservatives like Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, are miffed about Trump’s push for billions in more spending without compensating spending cuts. Staunch MAGA supporters like Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida, are openly griping about Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s refusal to upend his chamber’s voting rules. Internal strategy documents obtained by USA TODAY from within the Senate Republican Conference have warned of “stories of conflict between Republicans.”

Getting everyone on the same page, in short, is proving to be a challenge. 

“We keep overpromising and underdelivering,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters last week, “which is not a recipe for good morale or high voter participation in the midterm elections.”

Stark disagreements within the GOP are jeopardizing the political potential of what could ultimately become the last months-long stretch for years when the party has full control of Capitol Hill.

Frustration in the House

Before the House left for August recess, one congressman summed up how Republicans in the lower chamber have been feeling lately about their Senate counterparts. 

“The Senate has been the quicksand of any good legislation,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-South Carolina, said.

The day before he made those comments, the House passed a budget plan on a party-line vote to allocate more than $70 billion to defense and intelligence spending. Part of that money would be used to replenish munitions and weapons depleted during the Iran war. The blueprint set aside several billion dollars for farm assistance, too. 

Crucially, it also included about $10 billion for election-related purposes. House Speaker Mike Johnson and the White House said that money could be used to implement elements of the SAVE America Act, the president’s election overhaul bill that would restrict mail-in voting and require photo ID and proof of citizenship to cast a ballot. 

The budget gambit wouldn’t necessarily include the full SAVE Act, though. Instead, it could incentivize states through grants to implement elements of the bill. Standing next to Vice President JD Vance in mid-July, Johnson called it “our best shot at enacting our party’s top priority legislation.”

Key Senate Republicans, on the other hand, are clearly less excited about it.

Read more: Internal memo urges Senate Republicans to downplay SAVE Act’s chances

‘Seen this vampire movie before‘

Because of special Senate rules, the latest budget legislation only needs 50 votes to pass. So-called “reconciliation bills” can avoid the typical 60-vote threshold known as the filibuster, which the president has been unsuccessfully urging the Senate to get rid of for months.

Yet GOP senators have a wide range of concerns with the new reconciliation bill. It doesn’t have enough money for the Pentagon, say some, including Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota. “It probably is not enough to take care of the problem,” he said last month, referring to the military’s depleted resources amid the Iran war.

Others, like retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, said they’ll refuse to vote for the budget bill if it includes the SAVE America Act because it’s too complex to try to implement before the midterm elections. The longshot effort to pass the legislation is a “waste of time,” distracting from the Senate’s other work, in Tillis’ view.

“People are selling you a bill of goods,” Tillis said on the Senate floor in July. He and Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell voted in June against adding part of SAVE to an ICE funding bill. Murkowski has been outspoken about how certain voting restrictions in the legislation would hurt rural communities in her home state of Alaska.

John Thune, for his part, is wary of the “uphill battle” another budget bill will cause. The legislation, the majority leader warned at a recent press conference, could overtake the work of as many as a dozen committees. It could also force Republicans in battleground states to take politically uncomfortable votes in marathon “vote-a-ramas” – a controversial side effect of passing party-line budget bills that can give Democrats unusual agenda-setting power. In the last reconciliation fight, Democrats managed to put several Republicans on the record rebuking Trump’s ballroom and “weaponization fund.”

“We’re taking a hard look at it,” Thune said of the latest reconciliation bill. “But we also know we have to have 50 votes. And at the moment, as I’ve said before, we’re probably not there.”

Top White House officials, including Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, met with Senate Republicans last week to get everyone on the same page about the legislation. Several emerged with unanswered questions.

“I’ve seen this vampire movie before,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, said, employing a metaphor he often uses to describe political stalemates that play out like horror films. “I’m not sure we have a plan.”

Both the House and Senate are scheduled to be gone for much of August and October, leaving them just a matter of weeks in session before November’s elections.

Zachary Schermele is the congressional correspondent for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: From SAVE to Iran war cash, Republicans in Congress are at stark odds